So I was looking on ancestry.com and checking on my DNA matches, when I saw a new match. It is for John E Pepper, (there is a second match further down my list of 4th - 6th cousins with the name T. P., both are managed by the same person. I am guessing that T. P.'s surname is also Pepper (I was a detective for awhile you know). This match also says that there is a common ancestor - Patrick Pepper and Marcella M Reilly (Anne Pepper's parents).
I started hunting around on ancestry.com and Newspapers.com (which has several titles from Pottsville, including the Pottsville Republican). I learned from this that Anne Pepper was not an only child - not by a long shot. She had nine siblings - eight brothers and one sister. The best I can figure is that she had brothers named Francis, Thomas, Michael, John, James, William, Charles and Ainges. She also had a sister named Mary, who married a man named Hugh Tye, and they had seven children: six boys and one girl, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Apparently the Peppers were a pretty prominent family in Schuylkill County, Thomas Pepper was a businessman, a distiller in Ashland. Thomas also held the office of County Treasurer, a post he held from 1891 to 1894. He also was a member of the Ashland town Council for two terms and a director of the Citizens National Bank. He was married to Elizabeth McDonald and had five children: one daughter, Hannah and fours sons: Frank, John, George and Thomas.
I found an ad for the distillery on Google:
I kinda remember reading that the business was originally a soda bottling company and changed over to a distillery later. This ad may be after he turned over the business to his sons. I thought this ad was a great find.
Before I stop for the night, I wanted to mention one other sibling of Anne's, and that is her brother Ainges. I have never heard that name before and I assume it is Irish, but I have no idea. The other thing about him is that in 1922 he lived in Scranton, PA. I know this from a newspaper article that says he was struck by a car, and suffered a compound fracture of the left leg and other minor injuries, according to the article. The article also says he was an aged man, more specifically 62 (younger than me and I'm not aged) and he lived on North Hyde Park Ave. The worst part is that he was struck by the car on 28 Mar 1922, and I found his death certificate indicating that he died 3 Apr 1922 and the cause is listed as a fracture of left tibia (automobile accident).
When I find some more about her family, I will let you know. But I do plan on doing this more often.
